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Lately I’ve found myself asking friends to repeat themselves, turning on subtitles and enhancing dialogue while watching TV and struggling to focus on conversations in places like crowded restaurants. I know I have some amount of hearing loss — but is it enough to warrant the time and cost to see an audiologist?
I suspect that since you’re reading this, you may be asking the same question.
Age-related hearing loss is one of the most common conditions affecting adults as we age. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 1 in 8 people in the US (or 30 million) ages 12 or older has hearing loss in both ears.
If you are having trouble hearing, Apple now has a new way to help make that decision to get your hearing checked. As part of the new Hearing Health features that rolled out with iOS 18.1, you can take a “clinical-grade” hearing test on your iPhone using AirPods Pro 2 earbuds.
I took the 5-minute test and the results surprised me. For more, uncover these hidden AirPod features and find out about these essential iOS 18 features.
Watch this: Testing Apple’s Hearing Aid: Hands-On with AirPods Pro 2 Software Update
What you need to run Apple’s hearing test
The most important component of Apple’s Hearing Health features is what you put into your ears. You must own the AirPods Pro 2 — the original AirPods Pro, the regular AirPods and the AirPods Max won’t work.
The second most important component is quiet: Find a quiet room where you can take the hearing test undisturbed for about 5 minutes.
As part of the test, the iPhone gauges whether the AirPods Pro ear tips are snug enough and also evaluates your surroundings. If something intrudes on the quiet, the test pauses.
How to take the hearing test
Start by putting your AirPods Pro 2 earbuds into your ears, grab your iPhone and then do the following:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap the name of your AirPods Pro that appears after your Apple Account settings.
- Under Hearing Health, tap Take a Hearing Test.
Start the hearing test in the AirPods Pro 2 settings.
The test begins with a series of preparatory questions, such as whether you’re over the age of 18 and if you’ve been exposed to a loud environment in the last 24 hours. It also plays a snippet of music to make sure the earbuds fit well enough that sounds don’t leak around it.
The test makes sure the AirPods Pro and the environment are both ready.
After that setup is done, the test itself commences, starting with the left ear. The iPhone plays three pulses of a tone: When you hear it, tap the screen. The tones occur at various volumes and frequencies and last for several minutes; at the top of the screen you can see a progress circle indicating how much of that ear’s testing is complete.
Tap the screen when you hear a tone.
After checking the left and right ears, the test ends and displays the results as dBHL (decibel hearing loss) values. You can also view an audiogram that breaks out the frequencies and volumes.
The results of my hearing test.
Not unexpectedly, my the left ear performed worse than the right. I could tell that before taking a test, a situation exacerbated by ongoing tinnitus. In fact, some of the left ear test sounded like no tones were playing at all because I couldn’t dig them out from the tinnitus ring.
However, to my surprise, the test results told me both ears have “Little to No Loss.” Tapping Show Details reveals the ranges indicative of more serious hearing loss.
The test results are stored in the Health app, where you can view more data, including tests you take over time to track your hearing performance. There’s also an Export PDF option if you need to send the test to a doctor.
Is Apple’s hearing test legit?
Apple’s health-related features tend to stay on the side of “helpful but not clinical.” For example, the ECG app on the Apple Watch measures your heart’s electrical impulses to evaluate heart health, but it’s not as accurate as getting a professional electrocardiogram. An ECG result that shows signs of atrial fibrillation is essentially saying, “This might be an issue. Go get it checked out by a profesional.”
For the hearing test, though, Apple was authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US shortly after the feature was announced, which is why Apple calls it “clinical-grade.”
Next steps after taking the hearing test
If the test on your iPhone shows signs of hearing loss, you have a number of options:
- At the end of the test you can turn on Media Assist to be used with your AirPods Pro 2, a feature that adjusts audio and clarity levels of sounds based on the test’s findings.
- You can set up the Hearing Aid feature of the AirPods Pro 2.
- If you’re concerned about the results, schedule an appointment with your doctor or a specialist to get a professional opinion and look into what else you can do, such as getting dedicated hearing aids.
For more about new iPhone features, see which Apple Intelligence features you’ll actually use and where AI summaries aren’t living up to the hype.
